Rep. Lamar Smith Wants Hearings To "Embarrass The President"

August 22, 2011 10:24 am ET —
Matt Gertz

On
Thursday, Roll Call reported
that Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) was planning to use his House Judiciary Committee
gavel this fall to promote a "jobs agenda." This would represent a significant
shift for a committee that has largely been focused on radical attacks on
undocumented immigrants.

But
later that day, the Obama administration announced that it would begin
reviewing the cases of the 300,000 illegal immigrants currently awaiting
deportation and prioritize the expulsion of the more dangerous criminal
violators, rather than targeting low-level immigration offenders for
deportation.

Smith
quickly abandoned his "jobs agenda," telling right-wing radio host Joe
Pagliarulo that he was now planning to hold hearings on the subject with the
avowed purpose of trying to "embarrass the President." Smith also suggested
that the House Appropriations Committee would defund the administration's
ability to implement their plan.

During
his interview with Pagliarulo, Smith also repeatedly pushed the falsehood that
the administration proposal constitutes "amnesty." In fact, while immigrants
who are not deported may apply for work permits, the plan does not provide
them with citizenship or even a path to citizenship.

SMITH: As to what our recourse is, what we can do, we can do a couple things, at least in the House where the Republicans are in the majority. We can conduct hearings, oversight hearings, we can pull in administration officials, make them testify under oath, find out what's going on, try to, frankly, embarrass the President and push back and get the American people on our side to push back against the administration. Secondly, the Appropriations Committee can defund any of these efforts, but unfortunately, on the appropriations level, you can only defund it one year at a time, so that's not a long-term solution. Frankly, Joe, the long-term solution is, if you don't like what the President is doing, you have an opportunity in a year and a half to change presidents, and that's ultimately where the answer is going to lie.

Listen:

Smith's call for hearings to "embarrass the president" comes
on the heels of Rep. Darrell Issa's (R-CA) comment that his
planned Oversight Committee investigation of trumped-up attacks on Obama's
adherence to election law would make "good theater." House Republicans
apparently prefer to use their committees to conduct partisan attacks, rather
than to attempt to solve America's problems.